Why ‘Game of Thrones’ fans would have to wait until 2019

It will be a very long winter for the fans of fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones,’ as the six-episode final season would only air in 2019.

Casey Bloys, HBO President of Programming, told Entertainment Weekly that the show’s directors David Benioff and Dan Weiss wanted to put more time to create the best final six episodes of the eighth and final season.

“Here’s what I’ll tell you: They take the time they need to do the show at its highest level of quality. As the show has gone on, it’s gotten bigger — big battle scenes, big special effects,” Bloys said. “These things take time. Here’s the one thing I can assure you: Dan and Dave were not sitting around on a beach waiting to go back to work. They’re perfectionists and this is the soonest it can come back at a level of quality that they are comfortable with,” he said.

Several reports also said that a GOT prequel is possible but only after 2020 after the final season is over. No timetable has been set, however.

“They’re moving along,” he says. “We have some really talented writers working on them. The one thing I will tell you, which we talked about before, any sort of pilot-to-series [order], there’s not going to be anything on our air for a least a year after Game of Thrones airs. We’re not using the final season to launch a new show or anything like that. There’s going to be a separation between the two. These are among the best writers working and I’m hopeful,” Cloys was quoted as saying.

Game of Thrones has won more Emmy awards than any primetime series since it premiered in 2011.